


The Lady

by redcandle17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family, Duty, Honor. Lady Stoneheart fulfills her duty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilecourageuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/gifts).



It was her throat that was cut, but it felt like there was a gaping wound in her chest where her heart was torn out. It hurt so much that sometimes she screamed, but her throat had been too deeply cut to form a scream. All that came out was a wheezing horrible to hear even to her own ears. The outlaws and smallfolk winced to hear it and huddled smaller beneath their cloaks.

She was a mother without her children, a wife without her husband, a daughter without her father. Her sons, and husband, and father were all dead, and her daughters lost. She was a sister too, but the memory of the sister who sat safe on her mountain without sending help only made her hate burn hotter. When they told her that the sister was murdered by a singer, she thought only, _Good._

She did have a brother who still lived, but he was held captive by the same treacherous monsters who’d slain her firstborn before her eyes. She couldn’t help him, not without an army and she had only a small band of outlaws.

She was one other thing also, one that no one could ever take from her. She was a lady. Some of the outlaws, among them the Dornish boy lord, balked at hanging men for wearing Frey or Lannister colors. She hissed at them angrily, “Then leave!”

The young northman made her meaning clear to them. “M’lady says if you object then you can leave.”

“We protect the smallfolk,” the little boy lord said. “We aren’t murderers.”

“Mine,” she said.

“Go home,” the northman said to the Dornish boy and the Tyroshi sellsword and the others who stood with them. “We of the North and the riverlands will follow our lady.”

Yes. She was the daughter of the rivers and the bride of winter. She was a lady and she had a duty still. Yes. Family, duty, honor. Her duty was to avenge her family and to drive the lions out of her father’s lands even if she had to do it slowly, hanging one westerman at a time. And when the westermen were gone and every last Frey was dead, then she’d go north and deliver vengeance on House Bolton. 

The dead had no need for sleep or food. She could work towards her vengeance non-stop but for her people. They were alive and they needed rest. She sat still and quiet, and while she didn’t sleep, her memories came to her like dreams. 

She remembered suddenly so clearly loosening her hair from its complicated and painfully tight knot one night and sighing at the sensation. Ned slid his fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp tenderly before pressing a kiss to her throat. “I’ll brush it for you,” he said, taking the brush from her hand and brushing her hair as lovingly as she’d brushed their eldest girl’s hair hours before. 

The lady touched what remained of her hair. It was stringy and white and more of it fell out each day. Another thing her enemies had robbed her of. 

Her enemies had Riverrun itself, too, the castle that had been built by her family a thousand years ago. Riverrun, her home as a child and as a maiden. Riverrun, her father’s seat. It made her rage worse to think of some Lannister bitch and her Frey husband and their spawn despoiling it. 

“Patience, m’lady,” the northman counseled. “Tom says Lannister thinks the war is won. He’s dispersed most of his army.” 

_”Jaime Lannister sends his regards.”_

She’d given him his freedom and his life in exchange for her girls. And what had he done? Shit for honor indeed. 

At last the time was right for more than hanging one or two insignificant peons. Lannister had sent the oldest and most loyal of Riverrun’s men to the Wall, but he had not accounted for her brother’s soft heart and the loyalty it inspired. She remembered she’d thought he was foolish for allowing so many peasants to shelter within Riverrun’s walls, but her baby brother’s folly had bred loyalty stronger than any Lannister could ever understand. 

Someone opened one of the gates, and the Lannister and Frey men were mostly drunk from celebration. It was easy for her men to kill them. 

Dawn broke as Genna Lannister, Emmon Frey, and their sons, good daughters, and grandsons stood on the ramparts with nooses around their necks. Emmon Frey was sobbing in that cowardly way that didn’t surprise her, but the lioness was stoic. 

The lady had to hold her torn throat close to sound out the words and even then it was barely comprehensible. But the young northman was there to speak for her. 

“Lady Catelyn offers you her regards.”


End file.
